"Father of the Mazda Miata" Bob Hall Talks About the Car's History - Automobile
I'd have fought a lot harder to retain the 115-hp 1. 6 and add a 2. 0 instead of the 1. 8 that became the sole engine in the car from, I believe, 1994 on in North America. As it ended up, the 1. 8 was a big problem in some countries (notably the European Union) because the displacement was actually 1839cc. Being over 1. 8 liters placed it in the 2. 0-liter tax category and the European importers were screaming. This was important because the U. K. and Germany were usually the third or fourth biggest markets for the car. Because development of the 95-hp 1. 6 for these European markets was rushed, and because that reduced sales of the 1. 8-liter globally, the combination of the "emergency" 1. 6 project and the 1. 8 for everywhere else was more expensive than the... But, hey, hindsight's 20/20. (Not 1. 6/2. ) As for what I'd do the same, well, I think maybe not as much as someone might think. Since we had no existing model, we could pretty much do anything and this established some parameters for the car. The people tasked with the subsequent MX-5s had all the hard stuff to deal with that we did (meeting performance targets and keeping it affordable while ensuring its relevance), but add in … that they had to deal with the existing model. Source: www.automobilemag.com
